


Buying the Farm

by GoneGravitas (AntiGravitas)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Chocobos, Gen, the chocobo farm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:26:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntiGravitas/pseuds/GoneGravitas
Summary: After Meteor came Omega, and still the world didn't end. With another apocalypse narrowly averted, what is there left to do until the next one comes round and needs to be dealt with?Or, Vincent buys the chocobo farm.





	Buying the Farm

**Author's Note:**

> So this was initially a fill for an exchange to answer the prompt "Vincent Valentine buys the chocobo farm" - however it got a little beyond the requirements so I'm posting it as a random fic instead. 
> 
> It's been a long time since I had involvement with the FFVII fandom, and without the restrictions of an exchange for security I've put this in the most appropriate fandom sections I think I could. If there's an etiquette for this I'm breaching, I apologise! The fic does stretch between the main game, elements of Advent Children, and is actually set post-Dirge.

It’s not that he lies. He’d made a promise and he’d kept it, and for the first time in decades he’d felt lighter, as though the weight of all those years, all that guilt, had blown away like so many clouds on a summer day. Shelke’s smile had been the sunlight on the waters of the Costa del Sol, or the first flowers growing in the ruins of Midgar, unexpectedly beautiful. Everything on that day had seemed brighter, so sweetly full of hope that he’d looked to the sky and felt himself smile.

The wind had lifted his hair, tossed the corners of his tattered cloak, and for a bright moment the world had been good again. 

Five days later he leaves Edge and heads east, alone and with the first drops of a late spring rain just beginning to darken the dust of the road. He has Cerberus strapped to his thigh and the Death Penalty slung across his shoulder, and a piece of paper folded up and tucked safe into one of his pockets. 

It’s going to be a long way, but he’s been further and done far worse in his time.

 

***

 

“He’s done what now?”

Barret’s voice roars from the cell phone loud enough she may as well have it on speaker, and Tifa winces, rolling her eyes. On the other side of the bar Cloud looks up briefly, then slides his gaze away, fingers smoothing over the locked lid of the cooler she’s passed him. Capturing the phone between her shoulder and cheek, Tifa puts a second box on top of the first then gives him a double thumbs up. With a nod Cloud straps the two boxes tightly together and slings them over his shoulder.

“Gone out east. He took that flyer I told you about, you remember, the one about the land? Yeah, that one. And he’s gone. Yeah, uh huh. We’re sending him a care package. Cloud’s taking it out now, and- I did. I did. We still had some in storage, and we’re not using them so...like an early housewarming present I guess!”

There’s silence for a while and Cloud shifts, waiting. Barret always manages to call at awkward times as far as he’s concerned. He glances out front at the bustle of people in the midday street and frowns against the pull of the road. 

“Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” the disembodied Barret declares.

_ So they tell us, _ Cloud thinks, and knows Tifa sees his soft snort. He hears her turn away and is glad that it’s too late to be put off leaving. He’ll take the road up through the mountains, ride hard until he hits the plains again. There’s some good driving higher up, long stretches across the ridges where the land falls away either side and then slides down into slow gentle sweeps that curve enough to be interesting but not enough to slow the exhilaration of a downward charge.

“Okay, Barret, well, I’ll get Cloud to send him your regards, okay? Okay, okay then, bye!”

His head is still in the mountains when Tifa comes round the end of the bar and catches him by the arm. He turns at her gentle tugging and looks down into her eyes. She smiles up at him and stands up on tiptoe to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Send him all our love,” she says. “And take care. Tell him to take care too. Tell him we’re still here, you- well. You know.”

“I know,” he replies, even though what he knows is that Vincent isn’t coming back. Cloud understands that look in the other man’s eyes, feels it too keenly, and knows he’s not found the right home for himself yet. For all that he’s fought his demons back into the Planet, Cloud thinks sometimes that Vincent’s worse off even than he is. 

“I’ll see you in a week or two,” he says and leans down to kiss her.

 

***

 

There’s a stiff breeze coming in off the plains today, and although the sun is bright the clouds scudding across the sky are testimony to the lingering turbulence of the previous season. Vincent stands next to the battered pickup truck that’s now his own, and looks out across the pastures towards the farm in the distance. It’s close to midday so the windows are dark, but even from this distance he can see the tiny details of disrepair, and the larger, more brutal evidence of damage. He’s heard the rumours and is unsurprised by what he sees, although some unexpected emotion pulls at him from a place in his heart he wasn’t even aware of. He has history with this farm, and even if it’s recent history it’s still so deeply and startlingly ingrained in him that he’s surprised by the depth of his own reaction. 

He meets Choco Bill in the grassy yard before the farm’s old front door, parking his pickup next to the equally battered rig that the old man has ridden in on. Vincent knows that the breeder no longer lives here, and now he’s up close he can see why. 

Bill’s eyes are shrewd, and although the same kindness is still in them there’s a tiredness now too that makes Vincent’s chest tighten. Another person left scarred by the sins of Shinra. As they wander the perimeter of the farm, following the edge of the paddock around towards its most distant boundaries, Bill tells him what’s happened to his once-thriving farm. Vincent’s heard a variation of this story before, the same pattern repeated all across the country in tedious predictability. Deepground and their bully boys, hand it over or we’ll take it anyway. Shinra, Shinra,  _ Shinra. _

They’d taken the prize chocobos, what was left of them anyway, the ones that Bill and his family hadn’t been able to move or convince to move before the soldiers turned up, loading them onto trucks and for what? Racing chocobos are no good for the military, the old man says, hands held up in bewilderment. But did they listen? Of course not. There’d been a fight too, and Chole had used a precious summons materia to call for help, which had come in the form of gold feathers and a yelling moogle. Even Mog and her planes-hopping chocobo had been no match for ten Deepground troopers and one grenade launcher - the farmhouse roof certainly hadn’t been.  

Vincent stares across the paddocks at the gaping hole in the red slates, poorly patched with a great tarpaulin and listens to the old man talk. He’d managed to convince the soldiers not to kill his family, but they’d taken everything of value with them. After that he’d sent Chole to live with friends in a nearby town. His grandson Billy had headed off to join the WRO and Bill had been left alone to wind the farm down. Vincent doesn’t ask why the old man had chosen to leave. Places like this don’t just need money to run, they need people and livestock and the type of energy that only comes with youth.

“The generator’s broken,” Bill says as they walk beneath the shadows of the wind turbine. He shades his eyes with the flat of his hand and peers up at the blades hanging still far above. “Them soldiers near burnt this place to the ground. You know, best I can tell they didn’t even mean to. Just kids, the lot of them. You know they helped put the fire out in the roof afterwards?”

Vincent eyes the dead mass of machinery, a mako/wind-powered hybrid, typical of places this far out from the main lines, and doesn’t even know where to start on fixing it. “They still took the chocobos,” he comments.

“That they did,” old Bill replies. “But they didn’t know any better, did they?”

They should, and they did, Vincent wants to say, but in truth he’s not so sure any more. Not after all the things he’s seen. “Who’s that in the barn?”

“Hm? Oh, you don’t remember Esme? Esmeralda’s my oldest bird, but don’t you let her hear you call her that. You’ll hurt her feelings. I’m still looking to get her rehomed, but her racing days are long past, same as her egg-laying. I’d let her go but I don’t know she’d make it through another winter.”

Vincent thinks perhaps that he does remember something about her. Back when he’d been travelling with the others chocobos had hardly been the foremost concern in his mind, but as they come to stand before her stall, leaning on the wooden door, the soft green of her feathers and the liquid black eyes that look up at him from her nest of straw stirs some memory in him. “She can stay,” he says.

Choco Bill makes a pleased sound and Vincent thinks this is what he’d wanted to hear. Taking on an old and economically useless bird hadn’t been part of the bill of sale, but Vincent doesn’t mind. The bird has been here longer than he has, and who is he to turn her out now?

Choco Bill leaves not long afterwards. He shows Vincent to the candle storage and the little portable heater that he’d been using for warmth in the nights when he’d still been staying out here, apologises again for not being able to fix the roof or the genny, and finally, with one last long look around at the farm that had been his life’s work, takes himself away into the lingering warmth of the fading afternoon sunlight. He’ll head for Edge or for the Costa del Sol, he’s not clear on exactly where he’s going and Vincent understands enough not to pry. 

Vincent is left standing alone in the yard of his new home, looking out across overgrown pastures and the remnants of materia-scorched earth where the grass is only just beginning to grow back months later. The wind sweeps in off the plains, carrying with it the last persistent chill of winter, and the only sound is the useless creaking of the broken wind turbine up above. It’s remote, it’s run down, and it’s damaged. The generator is dead and the roof has a hole in it almost large enough for a chocobo to nest in. Vincent lifts his hand and lets the breeze flow through his fingertips, feeling the echoing isolation. 

No heat, no power and no-one but him for miles.

Far as he’s concerned, it’s perfect.

 

***

 

The nights are dark so far out into the plains. When Vincent wakes in the middle of the night, not bolt upright but muscles tense, hand already closed around the grip of Cerberus, he can still hear the echo of Chaos laughing. He lies motionless, listening to the sound of the tarpaulin on the roof flapping erratically in the light wind, straining his ears to hear anything but the soft sounds of an old farmhouse. The heater ticks once, twice, still settling since he turned it off. It can’t be too far past midnight if that’s still cooling - he must not have been asleep for that long.

He’d told Lucrecia that Chaos had gone back into the planet, gone back into the heart of the world with Omega, the implication being that they were safe again, that she could sleep and dream and not be troubled by nightmares from the dark. But here, now, still somehow able to hear the ripple of the demon’s laughter, he’s suddenly unsure.

Vincent draws in a deep breath - long, even, making himself do it slowly. There’s a certain prickling in his muscles, a type of tension across his skin and down between his eyes that he can’t really describe, which heralds a transformation. He waits for it now, for the feel of the demon stirring, pulling at his bones, stretching its way out through him.

He feels nothing.

The night is silent, the room starting to turn cold again. He lies awake, alone in the dark house, listening to the snapping of the plastic in the night wind, and waits for morning.

 

***

 

Cloud finds him on the sixth day, but Vincent hears him coming a long time before the silver glint of Fenrir comes into view. He sits back on the roof slates, foot braced against an exposed beam, and watches as the plume of dust lifts up towards the horizon. He’d intended to get this hole fixed up properly today, but in truth he has little idea what the hell he’s doing. Guns he knows, killing he knows. The work of fighting and surviving and tracking and weapons maintenance, all these things he is proficient in. The reparation of gaping holes where an errant blast has blown away slates and torn through insulation and wooden beams, these things he doesn’t understand. 

Cloud parks up in the yard and by that time Vincent is on the ground waiting for him. There’s no tea to offer, and no coffee, but he does have whisky and water and that suffices for the both of them. They sit out in the sun on a little stone bench that props up the wall beneath the kitchen window, and watch Vincent’s lone old chocobo picking her stately way across the front paddock in search of the warmest corner. The box of mixed greens is sitting on the kitchen table, along with the other box of supplies and knick-knacks Tifa had packed for him. A housewarming present, Cloud had said after he’d arrived. Vincent had spied the glint of potions amidst the wrapped packages within, and where once he might have turned the gift down now something in him has relaxed enough, become far enough accustomed to other people, that he simply says thank you.

The two of them sit, legs stretched out before them as the sun reaches its zenith. The sky is blue, the chill of the night burnt off by the blaze of sunshine, and the grasslands around them are alive with the buzzing of insects and the sharp cries of birds. It’s peaceful and far removed from the devastation of Midgar or the constant bustle of human life in Edge. 

Cloud and Vincent sit and say very little to each other. Neither of them is prone to small talk, and the things they might talk about are too grand, too monumental, and far too recent to bring up. Vincent lets the sun warm the dark leather of his trousers and finds himself glad of Cloud’s silence. There’s no need to talk out here, no reason to rake up the past, new or old. There’s just the sun and the grass and the whisky and together they’re like the sudden silence of underwater, peaceful and insulated.

“You’re going to need a new generator,” Cloud says, his eyes on the distant horizon and the haze of the mountains. “And some wood and tar for the roof.”

Vincent frowns slightly, watching Esmeralda picking arthritically at the ground. Cloud, even now, is a mystery to him sometimes. He’s well aware that the feeling is often mutual. “You know how to fix a roof?”

Cloud snorts softly. “I picked up some things from Barret.”

Of course he did. He, Barret, Tifa - they’d helped rebuild Edge together. The buildings there had been more than just the tin sheeting and rope of the shanty towns. But still, it’s just another skill the man has managed to keep hidden.

“Come on.” Cloud brushes crumbs off his lap and pushes himself to his feet. “Let’s take a look.”

After a moment Vincent nods, and setting down his whisky glass, gets up to follow.

 

***

 

The airship is a roaring, thundering gleam of metal and power that descends slowly to earth on the edge of the outer paddocks, blowing dust across the road and setting Vincent’s teeth on edge with the whine of its turbines. Reeve himself stands at the top of the gangplank, arms outstretched in greeting, his long coat whipping around his calves, dressed for a formal meeting even all the way out here. 

The airship is a smaller, sleeker version of the  _ Shera. _ Looking as though it’s built for speed rather than any kind of serious haulage, it’s barely a quarter of the size of Cid’s regular ship. The logo of the WRO is emblazoned on its hull, along with another symbol Vincent doesn’t recognise but which he later learns marks the craft out as one of Reeve’s personal transport vessels. He gives the man a long, cool look in exchange for that information and tells him flatly to watch who he’s modelling himself after. Reeve has the good grace to blush, and Cid laughs harshly. 

The purpose of their visit only becomes clear once the initial round of greetings has been dispensed with. 

“Heard you need some power for this place,” Cid says, disappearing back up the gangplank as Reeve grins. When he reappears it’s from a newly opened hatch in the side of the airship’s belly, and behind him on a great trolley is a gleaming generator. “I got you covered. Goddamnit give me a hand, Reeve, don’t just stand there!” 

There are no WRO markings on the side of this machine, and Vincent suspects that’s deliberately so, even though Reeve’s hands, or at least the depth of his pockets, are clearly all over this gift. Cid acts as though the machine is his own, but then Cid acts like that around every machine, and in truth Vincent doesn’t really know what to say. It’s hard to feel indebted when Cid’s pride in what he’s handing over is so obvious, when he’s known the man for long enough to know that the only debt he’ll be in to him is one that entails keeping the thing in good working order - or else.

In the end the two of them spend almost a week at the farm. Vincent’s barely sure what to make of their presence, initially taken aback by Reeve taking so much time out from his schedule to come here and still vaguely suspicious of accepting charity from the man. But for what it’s worth Reeve keeps a lid on his endless optimism, and Cid, well, give Cid a machine to work on and if you ignore the cursing it’s as though he’s not even there. Vincent can appreciate that in a friend. The long years and the bleakness of his outlook have made him intolerant of company, too inward-looking to have time for the chatter and friction of other people, but there’s another part of him that’s come to the surface recently that he neither recognises nor fully understands. 

Cid spends the five days of their visit wiring in the new generator and fixing up the wind turbine. When Vincent, only half joking, asks if he knows what he’s doing, Cid curses goodnaturedly at him. “I can build a rocket ship, Vincent, I can refit a goddamned wind turbine!” 

To Vincent’s surprise Reeve leaves his fancy jacket slung over a kitchen chair, rolls up his sleeves and sets out helping to clear out the barn. The place is as broadly clean as it’s possible for a chocobo stable to be, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a need to rake out old straw, sweep up the empty stalls and apply a fresh coat of paint ready for the day that Vincent finally brings more beasts home.

The work takes them all day, from early morning to the close of each afternoon, and afterwards they sit out drinking in the soft evenings, eating up the last of the cake Tifa had sent and supplementing the meal with supplies brought down off the airship. They talk of chocobos and the right type of paint to last out the long summers without peeling, and where he’ll get his supplies from and at what price. They don’t talk of the WRO or what passed so recently in fire and mako and only nearly-averted disaster. No-one asks him why he’s out here, and he supposes that’s something they’d agreed between them before they came out this way, but for once the thought of the others’ concern doesn’t irritate him. They’re here, without being asked, just as he’d go to them in their times of need, no pleas required. That’s a nice understanding, a strong one, and it settles something in him he’d not realised had been stirred to fretting.

The labour is hard, and although Vincent, mako-strengthened as he is, doesn’t feel the same pull in his muscles as the other two do, he still feels the satisfaction of having achieved something worthwhile. Vincent had thought that he’d mind the company of others, but strangely he finds that he doesn’t so much. It’s so quiet out here, so peaceful, and so far removed from the wreckage of the cities or the steel and glass looming of the great reactors that it’s somehow easy to ignore the echoes of the past that lies between them.

By the time the week is up the barn has been repainted, the wind turbine is purring on high, and the farmhouse is lit warmly from within again. Vincent stands in the yard, the airship a now distant speck on the horizon, and looks at his home. It still feels new to him, and now without the voices of the people he’s come to view as friends, the place seems uncomfortably empty. It yearns for more life than just him to fill it out and give it purpose, and now, he supposes, it’s time for that to be the case.

Just like him, this farm always used to have a purpose. Time, he thinks, to uncover it again.

 

***

 

The breeze lifts the strands of his hair from his shoulders and blows them across his face, and Vincent thinks, not for the first time, that he doesn’t remember it being like this when Cloud had done it. The grasslands stretch away in all directions, lush and flat, shimmering just a little with heat haze in the midday sun. The day is unusually hot, considering the season, but summer is coming on fast now and if this is a sign of things to come then he better hope the well back at the farm is deep enough to cope. 

The lure materia is warm in his hands, glowing gently in the sunlight, and he can feel it drawing on his energy to power its abilities. The resonance between mana and mako is old and natural, but this materia is one unfamiliar to him. It had always been Cloud or Tifa or even Yuffie that had handled the chocobo luring while the rest of them either watched or lent a hand afterwards in the corralling process. Chocobo luring had never appealed to Vincent in the past, and yet now, here he is, deep violet materia cradled in his hands, a box of Tifa’s greens sitting at his feet, waiting alone for someone to answer him.

It takes hours. The lure is new to him, unattuned, a strain of music he’s heard but never tried to sing before. And it’s not that he doesn’t know how to care for a chocobo, hell, he’s looked after enough in his time, and he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think he could do it, but this? This standing waiting, this expectation and complete lack of promise? It’s a delicious untapped potential, but of a sort he’s not even sure he trusts.

Some time close to evening the first bird finds him. The beast is a pale yellow, with a fine plume of a tail and an intelligence in its eyes that even Vincent recognises as sharp. It watches him from a distance, ignoring the greens he offers, and then after almost an hour of coaxing, turns and races away into the lowering gloom. Vincent watches it go, looking down at the materia in his hand, the metal of his claws clinking against its smooth surface and can’t work out if he should be frustrated or amused. Somehow he doesn’t feel disappointment. It’s strange. The day has been spent out in the whispering grasslands, alone save for the sun and the hissing of the insects, and he has nothing to show for it save for an inner calm that he’s almost afraid to disrupt. 

Dawn of the next day has barely begun to pale the sky and he is already three miles out from the farm, lure materia in hand, because if there’s one thing Vincent Valentine has never done it’s give up. Not really. Not permanently anyway. Not when there’s still blood in his body and a reason to be angry at the world. His anger may be cold and in the past half-borrowed from someone else, some monster that laughed as it clawed its way out of his skin, but if nothing else that’s just given him a resigned tenacity when it comes to dealing with adversity that Tseng once told him strays close to horrifying.

Four hours in and his first bird approaches. It’s not the one from the day before because it’s smaller and has less muscle around its shoulders. He feeds it, and then, after some minutes of consideration, sends it on its way. First catch or not, its feet had been a little wonky and its body too squat to be a racing bird, and something in the back of Vincent’s mind still thinks of the racing birds at the Golden Saucer every time he thinks of a fine chocobo. But it’s all right, because he has time, he has  _ plenty _ of time.

It takes him three days to get the birds he wants. He walks for miles under the warmth of the sun and the cheerfulness of clear blue skies, enough that his feet actually start to ache a little. He returns home tired, falling into bed early, worn out in a satisfying way. Not the aches of combat and mako-fuelled healing, but the stretch of muscles that have done good work that day.

He picks up his first likely bird in the early evening, its head shaped into the delicate lines of a sort Vincent thinks pretty and full of potential. The creature has the hints of the type of sleek form that speeds across the sand as though it’s flying and, pleased, he escorts his prize home. He picks up another pair of birds on the way, holding the lead rope of the first under his arm, and then a fourth turns up not a quarter of an hour later most likely out of simple curiosity, proving that it does indeed never rain but pour.

A week later he wakes to find a beautiful pair of racing chocobos picking around his front yard in the early morning light, and when he goes down to greet them they’re already tame enough to dip their heads into the palm of his hand. They also have slender ownership bands around their ankles and Vincent bends down carefully to look at these, wary of being kicked. He straightens up, suspicions confirmed. So Choco Bill had sent his best beasts out into the plains rather than hand them over to Deepground. It makes sense. And now here they are, home again. 

He takes them back inside the barn where they strut with the air of monarchs returning home until he brings out food and sets about his morning tasks. They’re still there by the end of the day after the grooming and the mucking out is done, tolerating his careful inspection of their plumage and the ointments he puts on their eyes to clear the infection the male has picked up. He leaves them in the barn that first night and lets them out cautiously the next day, and when they’re still there in the paddock by evening he feels secure assuming that they’re back to stay.

Esmeralda watches all the new arrivals with the placid eyes of a bird who’s seen it all before, and Vincent lets her lead the flock on the walk back to the barn of an evening, her pace stately but her feet more than ready to deliver a sharp kick to a youngster that tries to get ahead of her. There’s a hierarchy in the barn now, and Vincent, to his amusement, finds that he’s not even at the top of it. Still, the birds seem happy enough and as he leans on the stable doors to watch them circle round to settle for the night he thinks to himself that for a months work this isn’t bad. 

The outline of a life is starting to fill in its shading now, and with the return of the racing pair there’s more than that. There’s gil too if he wants it - particularly since he owns any birds that came with the farm, the small print of the deed of ownership had turned out to be quite clear on that. Vincent’s not here for the money, but he is, he thinks, here for the long run. 

Still musing over the possibilities he takes himself back inside and spends the night unearthing the remnants of old riding tack left behind in storage.

 

***

 

Over the years, Vincent Valentine has been many things. Corporate thug, fool for love, lab rat, and righteous avenger. Chaos host and half-demon. Sinner. He’s spilled blood, both other people’s and his own, and there’s been times when the demon was there to lick his wounds clean and times when there’s been nothing but him and Fate, locked together in mutual loathing. 

He may be a chocobo farmer now, but he will always be the man that held Chaos trapped in his body by strength of will and bitterness alone. And so when the pack of starving levrikons come slinking around his farm, a group of nearly twenty, more than he’s ever seen together at any time, he watches them prowling for a little while and then goes to fetch his guns.

Levrikons are the dark, twisted and distant relatives of the chocobo, their ratty feathers oily with dirt and their long beaks serrated with tiny razor-teeth. They flock together by nature, but these ones flap at the heels of a sibling so large it could easily look into the windows of the attic should it be allowed to come close enough. They’re starving and working up the courage to get into his barn and attack his precious chocobos, maybe in search of eggs, or worse the adults themselves.

Vincent takes up Death Penalty, the gun smooth and almost weightless in his hands, an old friend that understands him better than any human can, and goes out into the dark to the raucous cawing of the monsters. 

As big as their leader is, as many of them as there are, it does not take him long. He may be a farmer now, working the fields to grow greens for the birds he gathers up and protects, but Vincent Valentine will always have the memory of his many sins and all the things they turned him into.

Afterwards he checks up on his chocobos and they watch him from the gloom of the barn, pressed into the corners of their stables. Except Esmeralda who watches him with calm, unconcerned eyes, as though she knows him and never doubted for a moment that he would take care of the problem. He goes from bird to bird soothing them and stroking their feathers, bribing with extra greens those who won’t respond to mere words. He spends the rest of the night in the barn, Death Penalty across his knee, Esmeralda’s head resting gentle on his shoulder.

The next morning he slings dead levrikons into the bed of his truck and drives them far out into the plains where he burns them all. After that he doesn’t see another monster around his farm again for many years.

 

***

 

Breeding season comes round, and then harvest for the plants. Yuffie has sent him seeds from the region where she grew up, claiming that they produce the best greens in all the Planet and although he has his doubts Vincent had no reason not to plant them. He harvests them late in the season and for once has to admit that perhaps Yuffie may be on to something. 

Cid drops by from time to time, ostensibly to check on the generator but mostly to sit out back with him in the evenings and be far from the demands of Reeve and the WRO. He is the source of much of Vincent’s information on the outside world and that is quite enough. They share cigarettes and drink the whisky Cid brings with him and Vincent lets the pilot talk and although he doesn’t say much of anything in return he never turns him away either.

He doesn’t see Cloud again for months, the man vanished on the wind like he always does, out somewhere on Fenrir or deep in the restoration projects or doing whatever it is he does to keep a lid on the memories and the undying threat of Sephiroth. The others won’t name the fallen angel for fear of calling him forth again, but Vincent will, for he already sees those cruel green eyes looking back at him every time he looks at Cloud and he knows that it will never truly be over for the other man. 

Tifa emails. So does Shelke. He doesn’t reply too much, but he does acknowledge them. They don’t come to visit because they’re all so busy with the rebuilding and in truth Vincent doesn’t want to hear it. He just skims over the talk of politics and planning and factions and futures because this is the entirety of his world now. This farm out in the back of beyond, surrounded on all sides by rolling grass as far as the eye can see and the great upturned bowl of the sky, blue and endless or black with autumn storms, it doesn’t matter it’s all he wants and all he needs. That and the soft, gleaming feathers of his chocobos, and the power of Tilda, his fastest racing bird, as they speed out across the plains in sheer celebration of the freedom of their lives. 

It’s ten months in when he realises that he hasn’t heard the echo of Chaos in his head for a very long time now. He pauses for just a moment, a sack of greens held tightly in his hands as he considers this, until the chocobo whose dinner they are nudges him impatiently in the shoulder, and, chastened, he carries on with what he was doing without pause to give it another thought. 

 

***

 

The seasons turn and winter sets in. There are seven adult birds at the farm now with two breeding pairs and the potential for another if the birds take to one another. It’s not much but it’s enough and he hopes that by next spring there will eggs and chicks and all the challenges that will come along with them.

Nanaki turns up with the snow, the first fat flakes starting to spiral to the ground just as he reaches the end of the dirt track and makes his way into the yard. Vincent had known that someone was coming by the way the chocobos had raised their heads to the horizon, and by the time Nanaki had loped into view he’d settled himself in to the idea of a visitor. 

Vincent carries on shovelling dung and straw, turning the stalks to air the bedding, only setting aside his yard tools when his guest is already at the gate. Nanaki makes his way into the yard and then stops and Vincent goes out to meet him.

“You said we’d make a tradition,” Nanaki says by way of greeting. “Once a year.” 

“Once a year,” Vincent agrees. “But this isn’t Midgar.”

Nanaki grins in his toothy way and shakes the snowflakes out of his mane. “I decided to change the venue. I hope you don’t mind.”

They sit before the fire Vincent sparks up in the kitchen hearth, just him and Nanaki in the little kingdom he’s built for himself. Outside the birds are locked up tight in the barn and Nanaki scents the air and tells him that there will be half a foot of snow by morning. He’s brought a pack with him, slung round his neck and affixed in place across one shoulder by a buckled harness. “For you,” he’d said. “From the Canyon. You like cheese, I know you do.”

It’s not a commonly known fact, but Vincent is not averse to the type they make down Cosmo Canyon way, and he unwraps this with a hum of satisfaction. There’s spices and herbs too, and a packet of fine, dark chocolate he doesn’t ask the origin of. Most of Vincent’s food comes from the nearest town, but that’s a two hour drive away and the last few months have been an education in cooking for himself. Not that he needs to, not in the way other people do, not after he’s had so much done to him. But since Omega and all that happened there he’s felt different. His needs have been closer to what he distantly remembers and sometimes it’s good to just play at human, for the comfort of it.

They eat the chicken stew he’s had cooked for two days, make a dent in the cheese and top it off with chocolate and a rich red wine Vincent’s been keeping for a special occasion. And then they sit, staring into the flames and listening to the silence all around.

With a shake of his head that makes the beads in his mane chime against one another, Nanaki tilts his gaze sideways at Vincent and asks, “So why here? Why this?”

Vincent turns the glass in his hand and doesn’t take his eyes from the flames. The question doesn’t offend him as it would had it come from the mouth of any other. Instead he gives it the consideration it’s due, examining his answer to see if it still holds true to the form it once had months back. As it had been then, he finds that he doesn’t quite know how to reply. After Deepground, after Omega and Chaos and everything that had gone along with that, he’d found himself on a precipice looking down into a clouded unknown. He’d jumped because the thought of going back was impossible and there was simply nowhere else to go.

Seize the moment, do something, do  _ anything _ , he has no idea. “I like the quiet,” he says finally. “The peace of the grave or the silence of the plains, it’s all one to me.”

Nanaki looks at him for a long moment, then snorts and shakes his head. The clatter of his beads mixes with the raspy growl of his laughter. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or if you simply don’t know. I think it’s the latter, so I’ll tell you why. You should know, so you can see clearly what you’re doing.”

“Oh? You think so, really?” Vincent’s voice is low and amused, his fingers tapping idly on the rim of his glass.

“Yes, really. When we’re to live as long as we are, my friend, we shouldn’t let ourselves get lost in self-delusion. You taught me that. Now, let me remind you.” Nanaki stretches his front paws out before him, shifting so that his flank catches more of the fire’s warmth. “Everyone needs a purpose and, if they can have one, a home. We may be monsters, you and I, but we need these things too. If we don’t have them we lose ourselves, become less than human. Worse than monsters. If we have a purpose, something to nurture, something to protect, to create with - then we become what people call human. We become ourselves, better than when we drift alone, without direction. People like us, Vincent Valentine, we can’t afford to let ourselves drift forever. If we do, we lose ourselves and what becomes of us then?”

Vincent does not reply at once. The concept is not unfamiliar to him, but although he’s heard it before this is the first time it’s ever really felt immediately applicable to his own situation. There’s been something growing in him these last few months, or perhaps settling out, but it’s been amorphous and vague, a state of being that he’s found difficult to articulate even to himself. Perhaps he’d not even fully realised what he was about. But a purpose? Yes, perhaps. Something solid and simple, something  _ good. _

“You’re not a monster,” he replies finally, and Nanaki grins again, all wide maw and fangs, the type of grin he keeps only for people like Vincent who understand and have seen a lot worse in their time.

“Then neither are you.”

“We won’t agree on that, but I’m not in the mood to argue,” Vincent replies, and drains his glass before reaching for the bottle. In truth there’s no anger in him at his companion’s assessment. Nanaki’s done his fair share of soul searching over the years and when he’s not blinded by his own past his head is far more level than almost anyone Vincent knows. 

The fire crackles in the grate and in the far distance a creature howls. From the timbre of its voice it’s something natural, a coyote or perhaps someone’s roaming dog, but neither of them react and the lone voice gives way again to the night and the silently falling snow.

“You know what I heard?” Nanaki asks suddenly.

Vincent, made sleepy by the warmth of the fire, has settled back to enjoy the buzz of the whisky and contemplate his companion’s philosophy, and thus does not open his half-closed eyes. “What did you hear?”

“Choco Bill was seen around the Gold Saucer, they say he’s back in the business again. Not breeding, but owning.”

“I heard that too,” Vincent replies. 

Nanaki looks sideways at him and Vincent doesn’t say a thing. But he knows, he already knows. The news had come in with Cid and his airship, rumours from across the continents but even before that Vincent had already had his suspicions. A man like old Bill can’t walk away from a lifetime of birds, no matter the price he’d already paid. Besides, Vincent had sent him a letter about the racing pair that had returned and gotten a reply back that had been no more than a congratulations and a number to call should he ever breed a bird he thought good enough to race. 

It won’t be this season that Vincent’s in any position to start looking at racing any creature he’s bred out here, and his current stock have already done their time. But in a year or two, well. And of course, where will Vincent be at that point? It’s an interesting question to ponder. He sighs contentedly and flexes his toes towards the fire, letting the armchair surround and draw him in comfortably. 

Nanaki’s grin is toothy. “Keep your secrets then.”

“I will,” Vincent says, amused.

In truth there is no great secret, but now for the first time in decades he can see a future, one in which there is something other than guns and blood and poisoned materia. And before that is the here and now, in a place where the silence no longer echoes with the laughter of an ancient evil, and where his head isn’t full of the dark anymore. Instead there’s a peace that fills him up like the waters of the purest of the Planet’s rivers, making him calm and dousing the rage that’s burned in him for such an awfully long time. 

He almost doesn’t recognise the sensation for what it is. It feels like that early spring day on the windswept top of the mountains outside Lucrecia’s cave. It feels like the bright glitter of sunlight on the water, or a girl smiling and truly free for the first time. He feels it again then as he thinks of a future and a purpose, of that new freedom, that new...hope. 

In the warm darkness of his new home, Vincent lifts his face to the flames, and smiles again.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, and that it made sense. :]


End file.
